Technical Q&A - all consoles

[countstex]

Hi guys, need some info from those of you with retro consoles. I've unpacked my PS2 and Dreamcast, however neither had a power cable in the box, so the question I have is do either/both of these consoles need a power brick or are they just plug right in the wall with a figure-8 power connector? I know a lot of the older consoles had the transformers built in rather than separate but i'd like to know first rather than just throwing 240V into them

[ratsoalbion]

They both use fig 8 power leads.

[countstex]

Cheers Leon, was hoping so as finding specific power leads would be difficult and costly probably I'll just pick up some cables locally then and get to some older gaming

[ratsoalbion]

I've edited the title of your thread Mr Stex so now we can use this as a resource for people needing advice about all aspects of console gaming - new, old, portable, home, NTSC or PAL. It's all good here.

[countstex]

Great idea, now I have the space I hope to play a bit more retro stuff without the emulation factor to contend with. Although one issue I have is our new spangly TVs don't allow for many 'old school' connections, so I may have to look into some kind of splitter box I can feed them all into and have it output into HDMI or composite if such a device should exist.

[Roy42]

I've got one that takes three connections; and ones that take one or two more than that are just as dirt-cheap as the one I got, and they work fantastically. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=av+ ... &_osacat=0

[countstex]

Cheers Roy, ordered one, plus a new Dreamcast controller as one of ours had died, and the connector for Samsung TVs, as I've lost the original :/

[JaySevenZero]

I've been using a Joytech Control Center for the past five years and never had any problems with it, it doesn't have HDMI but has component or composite output along with digital output for audio too.

[Roy42]

That's a nice piece of kit. I might keep that (or a future model of it) in mind if I ever get to a point where I'm sitting too far away to simply reach forward and flick the switch.

[JaySevenZero]

I've never used the remote I prefer to switch over manually, the main reason I went for this was simply the volume of connections allowed me to have everything hooked up through component and hooked up to my sound system. Apparently there's a newer version that also has HDMI input/output.

[countstex]

Very Nice, the Ethernet hub is a bit of a bonus! Might well have to get one!

[Roy42]

An ethernet hub, even in '06, seems quite anachronistic of it, honestly. I mean, if the 360 had just included wireless out of the gate like everyone else, there would be absolutely no more ethernet cables in use in my house anymore, as it's been for the past four years.

[ratsoalbion]

I still use wired ethernet for PS3 & 360 (slim) for the sake of speed and reliability. I went wireless on both for a while but I still get better results with ethernet cables plugged in.

[PlexShaw]

Yeah, I use WiFi for both my 360 and PS3 but would use wired in a heartbeat if I could.

[countstex]

Agreed. Wireless lacks the rock solid stability of some CAT 5. After working in IT for 15 years I'm still waiting for Wireless to become stress free. :/
I think the main issue is home routers are only comfortable with 2 or 3 wireless connections. Ours it hitting about 7 with all the phones and laptops and it drops connections all the time.

[Roy42]

Mine takes five connections perfectly fine.

[Mr Nicey]

I stand by ether net and for my ones (we run a lot of stuff PC, MAC, 3 laptops, Xbox, PS3, iPad) and sometimes most are running.

My house mate picked up the plug connections where you use a plug socket as a cable link so it's easy to put the input & output plugs on different rooms or levels of the house without running wire all over the place. It's been perfect for streaming films and all sort!

[Dante Fireseed]

i'm thinking of buying one of the new super slim ps3's to have at my girlfriends house, as i don't have any consoles there so it would be good to get some gaming in there question is i want to keep my current ps3 at home, does anyone know if i can make a backup of my ps3 (i'm a plus member so quite a few full games as well as psn games and saves, videos etc) and if i log into my account on the new ps3 can i transfer all my stuff to that and still keep it on ps3 at home?

[mikeleddy83]

I've heard a few people mention the Netflix region trick on the PS3 and until this second thought it involved some rent a proxy scheme which sounded dubious at its best until I saw this video:



Is it really that simple (I understand new addresses exist) and is this the method people on this forum use to gain access to the American content?

[ratsoalbion]

Yep.